21–30 of 727 posts
I thought this was common knowledge. Don’t the chains like Walmart do the exact same things?
For me, Amazon has been a shitshow for the last month. For in-stock product, they project delivery for Memorial Day and deliver in 24 hours, or promise prime and deliver not-so-much. Other retailers seem to be fine. Target, NewEgg, Walmart, etc seem to be fine. Small online retail seem to be fine.
I wonder that their awful practices are biting them now... once they hit a bump the whole system jams up.
Retail is ruthless.
why marketplaces are able to compete with their sellers is beyond me.
Why sellers would use a market place that is obviously going to compete with them is beyond me.
There is a supermarket chain called Aldi who's entire business seems to rely upon copying branded products yet they are lauded for offering great value?
You're either a platform/retailer or you're a manufacturer. You don't get to be both because we see the perverse incentive that happens when it's allowed.
I thought this was common knowledge. Don’t the chains like Walmart do the exact same things?
It's a little bit different because Amazon claims to be a marketplace at the same time as curating its own specific product offering. It would be kind of like if a mall required all transactions from independent stores in the mall to go thru the malls servers and then the mall started its own product lines to sell based on that data.
Is this any different than what other stores do with their own store brands?
I think the real question to ask is whether or not Amazon has a monopoly and whether they are abusing it to gain an unfair advantage over the producers of the stuff they sell. I mean when you mention other stores, I don't know if you mean this but I'm picturing e.g. a grocery store - where I come from there's usually three competing ones in the neighbourhood. They will all sell products from a premium brand, alongside their own (cheaper) store brand. But the premium brand is usually available at all competitors at similar prices.
Based on how much Amazon will grow during this pandemic, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are cut up by government to reduce their power to destroy any competitor.
Particularly given the current administrations disposition, I think pinning your hopes to anti-trust is like financially planning around lottery tickets.
Every single platform company, whether online or offline, does this. Apple does this with their appstore. Microsoft did this with their windows platform. Every retail or grocery store does this by developing their own native brand that blatantly copy existing products but with a bit lower quality and lower price.
Is this good or bad? Well this is how the vendors are forced to innovate, and that's good for the consumers! If we just all become social justice warriors and shame all these platform companies to do nothing because their products shouldn't hurt others like a bunch of communists, then it is US, the consumers, who lose from this. And even these social justice warriors, at the end of the day, are all consumers.
I also find it weird how they say Amazon "scooped up data", when all that data has been on Amazon's own server all along, voluntarily.